On March 14 and 15, the largest anti-Chinese protest in 50 years took place
in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. At least 13 people died, 300 buildings were
set on fire, and over 1,000 Tibetans were apprehended by Chinese
authorities.

Although Western and Chinese views of the situation in Tibet varied greatly,
on one point both sides agreed: Tibetan Buddhists generally and Tibetan
Buddhist monks in particular are obedient followers of the Dalai Lama. But
on that point, both sides seemed to be wrong.

Among the more notable features of the rioting was the participation of
Buddhist monks, in direct contravention of the Dalai Lama’s teachings.

The rioting broke out outside Lhasa’s Ramoche Temple on Beijing Road after
two monks were beaten by security officials. In his March 19 dispatch from
the city, the Economist’s James Miles wrote:

“A crowd of several dozen people rampaged along the road, some of them
whooping as they threw stones at shops owned by ethnic Han Chinese…and at
passing taxis, most of which in Lhasa are driven by Hans….The destruction
was systematic. Shops owned by Tibetans were marked as such with traditional
white scarves tied through their shutter-handles….During the night the
authorities sent in fire engines, backed by a couple of armored
personnel-carriers laden with riot police, to put out the biggest blazes.”

Rioting continued well into the next day, when the “occasional rounds of
tear-gas fired at stone-throwing protesters eventually gave way to a more
concerted effort to clear the street,” Miles wrote. According to the
official Chinese news agency Xinhua, what brought the violence to an end was
the arrest of 1,315 protesters.

The Chinese government then effectively locked down the Tibetan region.
Foreigners were instructed to leave and foreign press coverage from the
scene all but ceased. The unrest, however, continued.

On June 5, Xinhua announced that 16 monks had been arrested May 12 and 13 in
connection with three bombings in Tibet in early April. According to an
article by Josephine Ma in the South China Morning Post, “In the
first incident, five monks from Wese Monastery allegedly bombed the Mangkam
county power transformer on April 5….On April 8, four monks from Kebalong
Monastery fled after allegedly setting off a home-made bomb near the
barracks of the paramilitary People’s Armed Police….In the third case, two
men allegedly instructed four monks from Kebalong Monastery to bomb a
Tibetan home.”

In May, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, a former
correspondent from China for the paper, snuck into Tibet, reporting on May
15 that “the recent anti-Chinese protests spread across a larger area in
traditional Tibet than is sometimes realized. This was, in effect, a popular
rising against Chinese rule throughout Tibetan areas, and the region is
still seething.”

Meanwhile, the international community sought a negotiated settlement. In a
March 24 story from Washington, the Indian news agency PTI reported that
India and the United States had “urged China and the Dalai Lama to hold
peaceful negotiations between them to resolve the pro-independence unrest in
Tibet with Washington insisting the dialogue was the ‘only’ policy that is
sustainable in the Himalayan region.” According to the same story, French
president Nicholas Sarkozy offered France as a go-between.

The Chinese authorities preferred instead to ramp up their reeducation
program for the Tibetan population.

“Buddhist monks, civil servants, and public school students have been
instructed to attend special classes in the virtues of Chinese rule and the
evils of their exiled leader, the Dalai Lama,” the Los Angeles Times’
Barbara Demick reported from Beijing April 8. “Monks who refuse to speak out
against the Dalai Lama in patriotic education sessions are usually expelled
from the monastery and sometimes are arrested. Last month, two monks were
reported by Tibetan activists to have committed suicide because of the
pressure.”

In April, the Chinese did agree to meet with the Dalai Lama, conducting a
series of talks with his envoys May 5-8—which the envoys described
afterwards as a “failure.” The Dalai Lama then used a previously scheduled
world tour to ask for the international community to pressure China to
resume negotiations and allow an independent agency to investigate
allegations of human rights violations. Additional talks took place in early
July but made no headway.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain met with the Dalai Lama for 45
minutes on July 25 and made a public show of support. He was, he said,
“disappointed by the repeated statements by Chinese officials that ascribe
to the Dalai Lama views and actions divorced from what he actually
represents,” adding that “such rhetoric doesn’t serve a cause of peaceful
change and reconciliation.”

The Chinese authorities were not pleased. “A statement released by Foreign
Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said ‘relevant people’ in the United States
should stop ‘supporting and conniving’ with the Dalai Lama,” the Kyodo
News Service reported from Beijing July 28.

In August, the Dalai Lama was hospitalized in Mumbai, India after
complaining of abdominal pain. He subsequently canceled all international
trips, including an October trip to Europe, “after doctors advised the
Tibetan spiritual leader to rest more while he recovers from exhaustion,”
the AP reported September 14.

Despite the possibility of another round of talks in October, no mutually
satisfactory resolution seemed to be in sight. But to understand how such a
resolution might be achieved, a brief look at Tibetan history is necessary.

Between 1911 and 1950, Tibet functioned as a sovereign state. Before that
time, it was successively under the authority of first the Mongols
(1244-1717) and then the Chinese, who put governmental authority into the
hands of successive Dalai Lamas, understood by Tibetan Buddhists as
reincarnations of the divine embodiment (bodhisattva) of compassion,
Avalokiteshvara.

The Tibetans expelled the Chinese in 1911, leaving the Dalai Lama to rule
over a country that was essentially a Buddhist theocracy with the monks on
top. In 1950, the new Communist regime of Mao Zedong invaded the country and
overthrew the Buddhist regime.

The current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, assumed his position at the age of 15
just before the 1950 Chinese invasion. After an unsuccessful uprising to
restore him to power in 1959, he went into exile in Dharmsala, India, where
he has remained ever since, the titular head of the Tibetan
government-in-exile.

The Chinese view themselves not as conquerors but liberators of a province
that had never really been a sovereign country. They contend that their
efforts have been to aid and civilize a Tibetan population that had been
under the thumb of a benighted religious ruling class.

Thus, in a June article for the Xinhua News Agency, Liu Guoyan quotes a
Chinese official as saying that the “average life expectancy in Tibet has
increased from 35.5 years in the period under the rule of the Dalai Lama to
67 years at present. All the peasants and herdsman of the region are covered
by health and medical institutions and the level of their health has risen
by a big margin. The number of school[s] in Tibet has increased to more than
1,000, the Tibetan language…has reached the international standard.”

The Chinese likewise contend that the Dalai Lama and groups allied with him
(i.e., the “Dalai Clique”) have masterminded the recent revolts. According
to an April press release from the Ministry of Public Security, the Chinese
government “now possess sufficient evidence to prove that the Lhasa incident
is part of the ‘Tibetan people’s uprising movement’ organized by the Dalai
Clique. Its purpose is to create crisis in China by staging co-ordinate
sabotage activities in Tibet. ‘Tibet Independence’ separatist forces led by
the Dalai Lama takes the 2008 Beijing Olympics as their last straw to
realize ‘Tibetan independence.’”

In fact, the Dalai Lama has not advocated independence for his country, but
rather what he calls the “Middle-Way Approach.” This is an expression of the
traditional Buddhist idea that the path to enlightenment lies between the
extremes of austerity and indulgence. Applying this to the current situation
in Tibet, he argues that the path to resolution lies between the extremes of
complete independence and the current state of Chinese authoritarian rule.

The Tibetan people do not accept the present status of Tibet under the
People’s Republic of China. At the same time, they do not seek independence
for Tibet, which is a historical fact. Treading a middle path in between
these two lies the policy and means to achieve a genuine autonomy for all
Tibetans living in the three traditional provinces of Tibet within the
framework of the People’s Republic of China. This is called the Middle-Way
Approach, a non-partisan and moderate position that safeguards the vital
interests of all concerned parties-for Tibetans: the protection and
preservation of their culture, religion and national identity; for the
Chinese: the security and territorial integrity of the motherland; and for
neighbours and other third parties: peaceful borders and international
relations.

Notwithstanding the Dalai Lama, many Tibetans continue to support
independence. In their view, the Middle-Way Approach sounds too much like
the 17-point agreement signed by Tibet and China after the 1950 invasion, in
which China promised to respect their cultural and religious traditions—a
promise they regard as never honored.

They also resent the imposition of China’s population control measures,
including forced sterilization and abortion, on a region that does not
suffer from overpopulation. They are infuriated by the government policy
that has resulted in the mass immigration of some six million Han Chinese
into Tibet, which threatens to turn Tibetans into a minority in their own
country. And they are dubious that the economic development brought to Tibet
by the Chinese will last.

It seems clear that the rioting was timed to coincide with the run-up to the
Beijing Olympic Games in August, taking advantage of the Chinese
government’s desire to put as good a face as it can on its regime. In a
manifesto quoted by Ching Cheong in the Straits Times April 26,
pro-independence Tibetans declared, “The 2008 Olympics will mark the
culmination of almost 50 years of Tibetan resistance in exile. We will use
this historic moment to rejuvenate the Tibetan freedom movement and bring
our exile struggle for freedom back to Tibet.”

While it is not clear how large a proportion of Tibetans favor independence,
there can be little question that the 73-year-old Dalai Lama no longer
enjoys the kind of authority he once did—and that he himself knows it. Asked
in a May 24 interview with the Financial Times if he felt he was
losing control of his supporters, he responded, “Yes, naturally. My effort,
you see, fails to bring concrete results, so these criticisms become
stronger and stronger.”

Repeatedly, he has insisted that he has been in semi-retirement since 2001,
when the Tibetan exile community elected Lobsan Tenzin, a Buddhist monk, to
serve as prime minister. Tenzin, known by the honorific title Professor
Venerable Samdhong Rinpoche, is charged with negotiating with the Chinese.

In fact, the Dalai Lama’s power has never been as all-encompassing as
outsiders—friendly and unfriendly—have tended to assume. As Dr. John Powers
of the Australian National University explained in a March 19 interview on
ABC Radio National, “Since very early times in Tibet the monasteries have
often been at odds with the Dalai Lama….[T]he monasteries see their own
interest as being somewhat different from his.”

One monk interviewed by Nicholas Kristof in his May 18 column said, “For 50
years, the Dalai Lama said to use peaceful means to solve the problems, and
that achieved nothing. China just criticized him. After he is gone, there
definitely will be violent resistance.”

It seems increasingly unlikely that a weakened Dalai Lama can negotiate a
successful peace between a Chinese government uninterested in talking with
him and a Tibetan populace uninterested in listening. If Tibet is to avoid
the violence that Buddhist thought has always condemned, it may be necessary
for Western governments to acknowledge that he is not in charge and start
giving some serious thought to alternative means of resolving the conflict.